


falling isn't the end

by telekinetic_hedgehog



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Injury, Crash Landing, First Aid, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 11:59:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13317630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinetic_hedgehog/pseuds/telekinetic_hedgehog
Summary: Rey joins Karé’s squadron and flies an X-wing for the first time, but Kylo uses their Force connection to distract her at the worst possible moment. Fortunately, Stiletto Squadron is there to make sure she's okay.For the January whump prompt challenge. Thanks to comoderators Pantoffel and Bubbly88Tay.





	1. Chapter 1

Rey buckled her seatbelt, and the transparisteel frame lowered, closing her in the cockpit of the T-70. It was finally happening, she was going to fly an X-wing, and it was even better than she'd imagined it night after night on Jakku. It was all she could do not to bounce in the seat with glee.  Rebellion pilots would be a little more dignified than that, wouldn't they? Maybe not. Meeting Luke had mostly cured her of seeing them as legends and heroes, but still, this was a real X-wing, not just a holosim. She decided against bouncing and squealing, just letting the thrill run through her body and energize her.

The engine rumbled under her, not like the zippy rattle of her speeder or the clunky Falcon, but something smooth and powerful. The pilots who had survived Starkiller were some of the first to evacuate D’Qar, and they'd met with the Crait survivors on an icy, mostly uninhabited planet. Fortunately, it was summer in this hemisphere, so the temperature almost got up to freezing on warm days. Everything outside the runway and a salted, shoveled path between the barracks, command, and the mess hall was covered in several feet of snow. The Resistance needed all the capable pilots it could get, and Rey had volunteered to train.

Karé came over the comm in Rey's helmet: “Stiletto Squadron, this is Captain Kun. Count off, and then we'll practice lifting off from the runway. Just like the holosim-- nothing fancy, just the fundamentals. We've got this, team. All right then: Stiletto Leader, checking in.”

Finn's voice came in, warm and determined: “Stiletto Two, standing by.”

Tchekky Oo’rehd, a steady and loyal Abednedo: “Stiletto Three, standing by.”

Rose Tico’s eager, cheerful voice: “Stiletto Four, standing by!”

It was Rey's turn. “Stiletto Five, standing by.”

Lem Dinta, an outgoing and resilient half-Twi'lek woman on the upper end of middle age: “Stiletto Six, standing by.”

“Very good, team,” Karé answered. “Now, we're going to move along the Zerek axis only. This is all stabilizers-- don't touch the thrusters!”

To a chorus of “copy that!”, Rey engaged the stabilizers and felt the ship lift off the ground below her. _Stars, I'm actually flying an X-wing!_ she thought with a thrill.

Over the next hour, they practiced lifting off and setting down the ships, moving forwards and backwards, and making small circles. Karé was right, it was all very basic fundamentals, and it was nothing they hadn't already practiced on the holosim. Still, the excitement of flying a real X-wing made it worth it.

When they'd gotten used to the controls, Karé gave a new instruction: “Pilots, let's put these skills together. They should be muscle memory by now. I'm going to fly around the base, and I want you to follow me. Don't worry about keeping a tight formation-- in fact, since it's your first time up, give each other plenty of space.”

Stiletto One lifted off the runway, and the other X-wings followed. Karé led them forward and up and then turned left, starting a wide, counterclockwise ascent with the Resistance base at the center below them. Finn followed her almost exactly, Tchekky left a gap behind Finn out of caution, and Rose was smooth and easy for Rey to follow. With Karé’s guidance, they gained altitude and acceleration, tilting inward along the curve. To her left, out the port side, Rey could see the base buildings and their little paths grow smaller beneath them.

Her surroundings changed. She was on a First Order Star Destroyer.

“Hello, Rey.” _Kylo Ren._

He was wearing a shirt this time, and she could feel his resentment, his self-pity, his misery. She tried to pull away, but he grasped, desperate, at her attention.

Rey glared at him, barely restraining her hatred.

“Get out of my head.”

“You betrayed me,” he said. “You came to me, came to join me--"

“Go away. I'm not interested, and I'm busy at the moment.”

“Goodbye, Rey.”

There was a harsh jolt, and a _crash_ , and--


	2. Chapter 2

Karé led her rookies in a circle around the base, keeping an eye on the ones she could see. They were like baby birds learning to fly for the first time, unsteady but eager. The Resistance had been through so much, but by some miracle, she was still here, still able to teach the next generation of brave and loyal fighters. She wouldn't let them down.

Stiletto Five dipped and slowed, started to fall.

“Stiletto Five, pull up.”

No reply. Something was wrong.

“Stiletto Five, pull up and rejoin formation.”

It was like Rey had taken her hands off the controls. The X-wing, gaining speed, plummeted towards the ground.

“Rey! Pull up!”

Her comm was a scramble of panic as Finn and the others shouted for Rey.

A familiar, sick twist hit Karé’s stomach, the feeling of helplessly watching a comrade fall. Rey crashed into the snow, and Karé couldn't tell how bad it was under all the snowdrifts.

“Stiletto Five, come in!”

Finn begged, “Rey, please!”

“What just happened? Why'd she fall?” Lem asked.

Karé snapped into action. She turned and led the remaining ships back towards the runway. “Stiletto Squadron, we're making an emergency landing. I'm going to guide you through the landing, and then I'm going back for Rey. Understood?”

They copied, and she switched comm channels.

“Medbay, this is Stiletto Leader. A human pilot crashed an X-wing and is not responding. Requesting emergency services.”

“This is medbay. EMS is on our way. Do you have the location of the crash?”

“Um, southeast of the base. About half a kilometer at most.”

“Stand by, Stiletto Leader.”

“Copy.”

Her heart was racing, but she guided her squadron over the runway, and they lowered their ships down onto the flat duracrete. Thank the Force, they weren't too shaken to make the landing. She'd commend them later.

Then, no longer limited to moves the trainees could do, she took off again, faster, and rolled into a turn towards the crash.

Zipping over the blank white landscape, she switched her comm back to Rey's ship. “Rey, are you there? Can you hear me?”

No answer. Kriff, this was just training, nothing complicated, nothing Rey hadn't done a hundred times on the holosim. How did this happen? Karé gritted her teeth and refused to think about Muran, about L’ulo, about any of the other ghosts pressing up against the edges of her mind.

“Karé?” Rey's voice was pained and quiet, but it was there. Karé sighed in relief.

“I'm coming, Rey. Are you hurt?”

Another long pause. “Yeah… my leg… it--it's crushed, I think.”

“Hold on. I'm almost there, and medbay is sending a team. Just keep breathing; stay with us, okay?”

Karé spotted the downed X-wing and aimed to pull up right beside it.

“I--" Rey breathed hard and groaned a little. “I'll try.”

Well, that was all Karé could ask of her.

Snow scattered in powdery plumes under Karé’s ship as she descended. Her landing gear sunk in the snow, but the fuselage and wings distributed the ship’s weight more evenly. Karé practically tore off her seatbelt, threw open the door, and scrambled out. Icy air stung her nose and lips, and her feet fell through the snow so that she had to shuffle, knee-deep, but she made it over to where Stiletto Five had crashed.

The ship was stuck at about a 35 degree  angle. It looked like the snow had absorbed the worst of the impact, but an abrupt stop from that height could still be deadly. No, she couldn't think like that; she had to focus.

Karé shoved a pile of snow off Stiletto Five’s windshield and pried open the canopy. Rey was leaning forward, held to the seat by her seatbelt, her helmet drooping towards her chest. As far as Karé could tell from inside the cabin, the nose of the ship was crumpled in on itself-- and on one of Rey's boots.

 _Kriff._ “Can you hear me, Rey?”

Rey moaned and nodded. “My leg-- it's bleeding,” she panted. “A lot.”

That was bad. Especially at this angle. Heavy bleeding needed to be elevated; at the angle Rey was trapped at, gravity would be working against her.

“If I got it unstuck, could you pull your leg out?”

“I think so.”

“All right, hold on, Rey.”

Karé raced back to Stiletto one, fighting through the snow and trying to think of what she could use to improvise. She pulled out an emergency landing bag and dug through it for a med kit and a tent pole. The pole was lightweight but strong, and she rushed back to Rey's side and wedged the end of the pole next to Rey's ankle as a lever.

“Now, Rey, lift your foot out on three, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Ready? One... two… three!” Karé threw her weight against the lever, making a gap in the crumpled metal.

Rey pulled her leg up, despite pain that made her cry out, revealing a boot that was entirely the wrong shape. Karé’s stomach turned in on itself.

As soon as she was sure Rey's foot was free, Karé released the pole and sprang up to stand behind Rey. She held down the latch to adjust the seat and pulled Rey up against gravity. This gave her enough space to get Rey out of the cockpit. Holding Rey up, she undid her seatbelt and lifted her out of the ship.

Rey groaned and whimpered, but she clenched her jaw and didn't complain.

“You're doing great, Rey. Hang in there,” Karé encouraged her as she laid her down in the snow.

She raised the injured leg to slow the bleeding, and blood flowed out of the boot, running up the leg of Rey's orange flight suit and staining the white snow crimson.

“The medics are on their way. We're gonna hold on, stay conscious, and wait for them to find us, okay?”

“Trying,” Rey managed in between pained breaths. “I'm sorry… Kylo, he…”

Her sentence trailed off into wordless moans.

Kriff, Rey wasn't making sense. Confusion was definitely a symptom of blood loss; Karé remembered that from training. And Rey's lips and fingernails were more blue than they really should be.

 _Come on,_ Karé silently pleaded with the medics. _Please get here in time._


	3. Chapter 3

Rey was getting cold, and Karé wasn't sure if it was the planet's climate or blood loss, or both, but she pulled a blanket out of her emergency landing bag and wrapped it around her. She considered trying to fit Rey in Stiletto One, but she didn't want to jostle her around too much. And if she needed oxygen, the medics would have to be the ones to give it to her.

So all she could do was wait, and hold Rey's hand, and prop up her leg. The bleeding had slowed. Karé hoped that that was because the wound was elevated and not because of dangerously low blood pressure. 

Rey was quieter now: her gasps and grunts had relaxed into shallow yet steadier breaths. She closed her eyes, and it looked like she was just trying to hold on. 

“You're doing great, Rey. The medics will be here any second,” Karé reassured her. 

It wasn't just Rey; the whole world was so quiet. It was a desolate silence, as though they were trapped in a dimension outside of time, where nothing ever happened except snowflakes floating down from a blank sky to a blank world. There was nothing on the horizon in any direction, and nothing to disturb the flat white land except the two ships and two desperate women. 

Karé shivered. 

The  _ vroom _ of a snow speeder became audible, slowly at first, and then louder as it came closer. 

_ Thank the Force. _ Karé felt some of the tension leave her body. 

“All right, Rey, just a few more seconds.” 

Rey made a weak attempt at nodding and a pained half-smile. Her eyes were still closed, and her face was unnaturally pale except for spots on her cheeks and the tip of her nose where the cold got to her. 

The speeder pulled up right beside them, and the med team rushed out. Karé tried to stay holding onto Rey as much as she could without getting in the way as the medics slid a stretcher under Rey and then used its stabilizers to raise her into the speeder. Quickly, they hooked her up to a droid that would monitor her vitals, and it placed an oxygen mask over her face. 

Rey gasped, opened her eyes halfway, and moaned. She went limp, sinking onto the stretcher and loosening her grip on Karé’s hand. 

“We've got her. She'll be all right,” one of the medics told Karé as another restarted the speeder’s engine. 

Karé wanted to believe him. She held Rey's hand and tried to keep comforting her as they rushed her back to the base. 

Cold air whipped them harshly as the speeder flew over the snow. The journey was longer than it had taken by X-wing, but the destination was more certain. 

The speeder had made it near the base when Karé saw a patch of orange up ahead. The rest of the squadron was on its way, leaning against the wind and trudging knee-deep in the snow. Seeing them determined to find their downed teammate made Karé’s chest swell with pride. When they saw the emergency speeder approach, they turned around to head back towards the base. 

At the medbay, the medics unloaded the stretcher holding Rey and the oxygen machine. Rey was still barely conscious, her eyes half-closed and her breathing pained. 

“We've got her,” the medic told Karé. “I'm sorry, but you'll have to stay in the waiting room.” 

Karé nodded, reluctant, and squeezed Rey's hand before letting go. “Come on, Rey. You can make it,” she whispered. 

And with that, they pushed Rey out of sight. 

Karé staggered back towards the waiting room as if in a trance. She collapsed into a chair against the wall, pulled off her helmet, and ran a hand through her hair. Setting her helmet on the chair beside her, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. 

How could this happen? How could she have failed her rookies so badly that one of them nearly died their first time in the cockpit? And it wasn't even Rey's first time flying-- she'd flown the Millennium Falcon, for kriff's sake. 

Karé sighed deeply. Her body was heavy with exhaustion, and she felt shaky as she came down from the adrenaline rush. 

“Karé!” Finn called, and when she opened her eyes, the whole squadron was rushing in.  “Er-- Captain Kun. Where's Rey? Is she all right?” 

Karé straightened up and tried to put on a brave face for her team. 

“She's alive,” she answered. “The crash crushed her foot and part of her leg, and she lost a lot of blood, but the medics have her now.” 

“What made her fall?” Rose asked, her face scrunched in worry. 

“I wish I knew. I'll have the mechanics retrieve her ship and look for a technical malfunction.” 

“When can we see her?” asked Tchekky. 

“I don't know. But practice is over for today. Clean up, get changed. Mess around on the holosim, if you feel like you need more practice.” 

She looked around at their anxious faces. She didn't feel particularly inspirational, but her squadron needed a leader. 

“You did a great job today. I'm proud of you for keeping your cool out there, and especially for coming to find us despite the harsh climate here. That showed a lot of courage and loyalty. We all want to help Rey, and right now the best thing we can do is to trust the medics to do their job, and to take care of ourselves and each other I’ll let you all know as soon as I hear something.” 

“All right.” Finn still looked worried, but he nodded, trusting. “Thanks for looking out for her, Captain. Good to know you have our backs.”

The other members nodded and turned to go. Karé picked up her helmet and, with an anxious glance at the closed doors, walked back outside into the quiet snow. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and concrits are welcome! I treasure nice and helpful feedback :)


End file.
